Joe rides with Lance for a day in France, or not

McAvoy Layne
Special to the Bonanza
July 15, 2005

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France! Lance! The Tour! It doesn't get any better! Give me cheese and a carafe of wine! This is what life is all about!

What élan! What panache! The countryside! The fans! The strategy! The jerseys! The lungs! The legs! I want to be there!

My appreciation for these super athletes was gained first hand when I found a press pass on the beach several years ago. Studying it, I realized it was a press pass for the Coors Classic, which pitted the great Bernard Hinault against America's Greg Lemond, and, well, I called in sick.

Press pass in hand, I leaped into the back of an international press truck at the Hyatt to cover the leg that started under the arch, you know, the footbridge that crosses Lakeshore, down Spooner, up into Virginia City, to finish under the arch of The Biggest Little City in the World.

I introduced myself to the other four reporters in the flatbed and was surprised to discover not one of them spoke English. They were European radio reporters, and as the gun sounded they began shouting into their shortwaves as though we were about to be struck by a meteor.

The riders stood out of their saddles and winged down the same course we use to start the I-Can Ten-K! The hair on my arms stood up.

Two things captured my attention right away. One, Hinault and Lemond were quick to take the lead: and two, there was a cooler without a lock on it full of cold Coors in the back of the press truck.

As we approached Hidden Beach, I took the liberty to open the cooler, pulled out a cool one, and though it was barely eight o'clock in the morning, I made a magnanimous offer to my fellow press members. They were much too busy to be bothered, and as I had really nothing whatsoever to do, I figured what the heck, life is short, and I toasted the riders.

Well, by the time we took the corner at Spooner Lake, Greg and Bernard had separated themselves from the peletron, and it looked like this was going to be a mano-a-mano contest for the stout of heart.

They sped down Spooner at 50 miles an hour, and our driver, Mario, was right on their hip! I could see the intensity in their eyes, the veins in their necks, the rips in their calves! It was an awesome sight I had never dreamed of seeing. There I was, like a fifth wheel, riding with the best cyclists in the world.

"Dang!" I shouted to my colleagues, "This is sport that will make a body's very bladder curl with excitement! How 'bout a Coors?!"

My enthusiasm was greeted with grunts, so I was on my own again, never suspecting why they were refusing my supplications.

Long about Silver City I realized I had to, "make shishi," as they say in the Islands, so I shouted through an open window to the driver, "Yoo-hoo, excuse me, but I think I have to go shi-shi!"

Mario did not acknowledge my distress, but seemed to step on the gas, tossing me from one side of the flatbed to the other.

In a moment of dread, I realized we were not going to stop until we reached the arch in Reno. I also thought I detected some smarmy smirks on the faces of my colleagues.

I wish I could tell you who won that leg of the Coors Classic, but I had some urgent business to attend to when we arrived in Reno, and missed the finish. What I can tell you is that thanks to the press pass I found on Dig Me Beach, I have a profound respect for all of those fine-tuned athletes who make their living assaulting summits and attacking the descents.

To Lance Armstrong, the Discovery Channel Team, and all Les Forcats de la Route, those convicts of the road who make the Tour de France the grandest spectacle in sport, I salute you!





McAvoy Layne lives in Incline Village and visits schools throughout Nevada as the ghost of Mark Twain.